Thursday, December 9, 2010

It was a busy year on Old Rag for the Old Rag Mountain Stewards..This week, we wrapped up our year-end reports .. and some of the results were very impressive!Most impressive was the fact that Stewards spent more than 2000 hours on Old Rag this year providing visitor assistance and educational enrichment..Part of those 2000 hours were some very significant assistance and rescues of injured visitors in which Stewards played a very key role.

Additionally, more than 800 hours were spent simply in the professional development of the stewards.The average visitor to Old Rag Mountain may not know this, but the folks you see in the orange shirts, the ORMS, learn a tremendous amount about:- wilderness first aid, first response and medicine,-rock climbing and rappelling,-land navigation, and-the basics of high angle technical rescue.

On top of that, they are all certified as Leave No Trace (LNT) Trainers .. and they know Old Rag pretty much like the back of their hand...

To give you an idea of just how busy we were, this is taken from the year end situation report (SITREP):

VISITOR ASSISTANCE DATA (SUMMARY) - 2010 / 2009 / change

WATER ASSIST- 53 / 48 / +5

MINOR FIRST AID ASSISTS - 24 / 13 / +11

EMERGENCY REQUIRING EVAC/ESCORT - 8 / 8 / NC

SEPARATED PARTIES - 25 / 27 / -2

FIRES EXTINGUISHED - 5 / 3 / +3

LOW VISIBILITY / NIGHT ESCORTS (NO LIGHTS ) - 8 / 16 / -8

DIRECTIONS PROVIDED- 516 / 438 / +78

LNT INSTRUCTION - 147/ 91/ +58

BASIC OUTDOOR SKILL INSTRUCTION - 29 / 25 / +4

NATURAL/CULTURAL INTERPRETATION - 146 / 29 / +11

As you can see from the data, there is always something happening on Old Rag Mountain! If you need more proof, scroll down thru this blog...

This marks the end of the third year of the Old Rag Mountain Stewards...something that began as an experiment or pilot project has turned into a mega success!

Along with success goes the requests to do more... more days on the mountain, more places to be served by a program like this,

..more opportunities to get some really hi-speed training.. for free.

But to do that, we need more folks who are interested in participating.. people, who, physically, can easily hike Old Rag , who get along well with others, who may or may not have training in first aid, LNT, rock climbing... people who are willing to LEARN (and in-turn, SERVE)... in exchange for 2-4 days per year spent in an amazing environment with great people who love the mountains.

If this is you, email us!

Our spring training begins in March... with a training weekend that will be AMAZING!

About Us

We are a select group of highly trained volunteers, providing mountain education and resource interpretation specifically geared toward visitors to the unique environment of Old Rag Mountain in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park.